Time gating should be stopped

I would suggest Mr. Yoshi P get spare of his time on other projects to redesign endgame loop without time gating,12$ feels like scam with current endgame loop.

there is no problem in milking content but Its time to find a proper way to design an MMO end game loop.

Except timegating is the proper way to design an end game loop for an MMO. These games die if people don't have a reason to comeback at regular intervals. Savage raiders, for example, would spam farm for BiS and then leave for 8 months if they could. Same thing with ultimates initially having the weekly lockout on getting a totem etc. The underlying business model of all subscription MMOs is designed to keep us putting money into the machine, every player that stops hurts the business and at some point if becomes unviable to keep going. If they were going to get rid of all timegates, yes the weekly lockout system is a timegate, they might as well take the MMO servers offline and just make a single player action combat game using the Unreal Engine.

Time-gating serves a very useful purpose in MMORPGs, which is to ensure that content remains relevant and active for a long period of (calendar) time. FFXIV's bigger problem is that there's very little interesting to do once you've hit the point of being time-gated.

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Originally Posted by Johners

Except timegating is the proper way to design an end game loop for an MMO. These games die if people don't have a reason to comeback at regular intervals. Savage raiders, for example, would spam farm for BiS and then leave for 8 months if they could. Same thing with ultimates initially having the weekly lockout on getting a totem etc. The underlying business model of all subscription MMOs is designed to keep us putting money into the machine, every player that stops hurts the business and at some point if becomes unviable to keep going. If they were going to get rid of all timegates, yes the weekly lockout system is a timegate, they might as well take the MMO servers offline and just make a single player action combat game using the Unreal Engine.

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Ultimates only have a lockout initially because the Savage tier is still in a lockout. If the weapons were not BiS ilvl, they would not be locked out weekly. Ultimates are the best form of end-game content this game has created due to their longevity, and there are still tons of people re-clearing and progging UCOB to this day.

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Originally Posted by TemporalFruitsAndVeggies

Time-gating serves a very useful purpose in MMORPGs, which is to ensure that content remains relevant and active for a long period of (calendar) time. FFXIV's bigger problem is that there's very little interesting to do once you've hit the point of being time-gated.

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I agree, but let's think about it, if you are someone who plays more than 3 jobs you will suffer gearing BiS..

each expansion another job and another way to keep time gating worst

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

I agree, but let's think about it, if you are someone who plays more than 3 jobs you will suffer gearing BiS..

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That is an issue, yes, but it doesn't mean there shouldn't be time-gating. Not everyone plays multiple jobs or tries to get BiS on all jobs. So instead they could work out a system to exchange gear between jobs or make it so if you get a piece for one job you get it for all of them somehow.

New jobs don't actually increase the amount of gear you have to get except the weapon though, and they did improve that by adding a weapon coffer in addition to direct weapon drops.

The time gating only works if there is underlying content that makes it worth sticking around for. Personally, I think that FFXIV is doing much better than most games in the genre but it has certain areas it struggles with like having a system where one character can be every job, but then suffering from the consequences by having a huge historic backlog of gear bloat. You wouldn't think a problem that some people suffer in real life with having to deal with a basement full of your grandparents and parents stuff would happen in an MMO, but it happens here. The other place FFXIV is struggling with now is finding its footing after completing the big story loop of started after the calamity. Job design quibbles aside, they shouldn't have done what they did with the story. A lot of plot points that an entire expansion could have been birthed off of were concluded in minor raid series, to the point they even killed off all the Gods in a single 24 man raid series. It's like they are allergic to something around that old plot and now we have this really weird story where this land has literally ZERO repercussions economically from the rest of the world pooling its resources to deal with an ancient calamity.

If I were guessing, I'd say most people are stopping because of those two main issues more than the rate people are getting geared. I've seen better times in the content drought between patches during Endwalker than this and that says something considering Endwalker had nearly nothing to do outside catching up on older content, island sanctuary, and maybe manderville stuff.

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Originally Posted by Johners

Except timegating is the proper way to design an end game loop for an MMO. These games die if people don't have a reason to comeback at regular intervals. Savage raiders, for example, would spam farm for BiS and then leave for 8 months if they could. Same thing with ultimates initially having the weekly lockout on getting a totem etc. The underlying business model of all subscription MMOs is designed to keep us putting money into the machine, every player that stops hurts the business and at some point if becomes unviable to keep going. If they were going to get rid of all timegates, yes the weekly lockout system is a timegate, they might as well take the MMO servers offline and just make a single player action combat game using the Unreal Engine.

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Reality disagrees.
Do you think the majority of active players right now are all savage raiding?
No, they're not. Very unlikely, or PF would be filled to the brim with people looking. Recruitment discords would be constantly looking for people. And they're just... not. There's like a handful of posts per day at most.

What do the vast majority of players do? Very clearly, non-timegated content. Because there really isn't anything else in the game that is timegated THIS HARD, and yet people keep on playing. Mysterious, isn't it? So timegating content is not a driving force for this activity.

The issue isn't that stuff is timegated either. It's rather that the timegated activity is pretty much the only thing TO DO if your main interest is in raiding and it's being artificially limited while other content... isn't.
Like okay, sure, you are a decent player, you have a static, you log in once or twice a week to do reclears...
and then what? If you like raiding, what is there to do in that regard? Ultimates? I've done two ultimates. Not enough people do them. People are already scared of savages, you think people are just lining up for ultimates? Last time I did ultimate through PF I was sitting with a party finder up for an average of 3 hours before I had a full party. I simply won't do it again, it is an absolute waste of my time. And many people likely feel the same.

I think what OP is asking here, is more raid content that isn't timegated, still rewards something fun and worth the time, and is also challenging to tickle the 'raid brain', but is also approachable for many players. Extremes are way more popular than savages, for example. Unreal Trials as well, I always see parties up and they tend to fill quite fast, so I think difficulty like that is what a lot of people are interested in.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Reality disagrees.
Do you think the majority of active players right now are all savage raiding?
No, they're not. Very unlikely, or PF would be filled to the brim with people looking. Recruitment discords would be constantly looking for people. And they're just... not. There's like a handful of posts per day at most.

What do the vast majority of players do? Very clearly, non-timegated content. Because there really isn't anything else in the game that is timegated THIS HARD, and yet people keep on playing. Mysterious, isn't it? So timegating content is not a driving force for this activity.

The issue isn't that stuff is timegated either. It's rather that the timegated activity is pretty much the only thing TO DO if your main interest is in raiding and it's being artificially limited while other content... isn't.
Like okay, sure, you are a decent player, you have a static, you log in once or twice a week to do reclears...
and then what? If you like raiding, what is there to do in that regard? Ultimates? I've done two ultimates. Not enough people do them. People are already scared of savages, you think people are just lining up for ultimates? Last time I did ultimate through PF I was sitting with a party finder up for an average of 3 hours before I had a full party. I simply won't do it again, it is an absolute waste of my time. And many people likely feel the same.

I think what OP is asking here, is more raid content that isn't timegated, still rewards something fun and worth the time, and is also challenging to tickle the 'raid brain', but is also approachable for many players. Extremes are way more popular than savages, for example. Unreal Trials as well, I always see parties up and they tend to fill quite fast, so I think difficulty like that is what a lot of people are interested in.

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I agree, Bozja content was the reason why I logon everyday,
I want to play challenging content but also repeating it better be meaningful.
Trial and Unreal gives nothing interesting for me but interesting to play with friends.. and once you finish it you have no reason to do it again.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Reality disagrees.
Do you think the majority of active players right now are all savage raiding?
No, they're not. Very unlikely, or PF would be filled to the brim with people looking. Recruitment discords would be constantly looking for people. And they're just... not. There's like a handful of posts per day at most.

What do the vast majority of players do? Very clearly, non-timegated content. Because there really isn't anything else in the game that is timegated THIS HARD, and yet people keep on playing. Mysterious, isn't it? So timegating content is not a driving force for this activity.

The issue isn't that stuff is timegated either. It's rather that the timegated activity is pretty much the only thing TO DO if your main interest is in raiding and it's being artificially limited while other content... isn't.
Like okay, sure, you are a decent player, you have a static, you log in once or twice a week to do reclears...
and then what? If you like raiding, what is there to do in that regard? Ultimates? I've done two ultimates. Not enough people do them. People are already scared of savages, you think people are just lining up for ultimates? Last time I did ultimate through PF I was sitting with a party finder up for an average of 3 hours before I had a full party. I simply won't do it again, it is an absolute waste of my time. And many people likely feel the same.

I think what OP is asking here, is more raid content that isn't timegated, still rewards something fun and worth the time, and is also challenging to tickle the 'raid brain', but is also approachable for many players. Extremes are way more popular than savages, for example. Unreal Trials as well, I always see parties up and they tend to fill quite fast, so I think difficulty like that is what a lot of people are interested in.

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To be fair the gearing baseline in this particular MMO has a bit of a weird quirk to it. The general idea is that the baseline gear for the expansions end is the artifact gear, and then the baseline gear for the post expansion MSQ is the lesser tomestone gear. Then there is the sloshy, messy world of "in-between" content patch gear that spans usually 10-20 item levels. The 20 item level jump is the baseline gear for the next content expansion since it goes down to a minor tomestone purchase, but then there is this 10-15 iLvL tier that is behind exactly 5-10 iLvLs from the crafted and raid tier sets representing the casual / pre-raid prep gear level.

The rate of iLvL gain feels like it is taking into account savage fights because without the savage fights the only thing someone is doing is logging in to cap 450 tome stones, do the four raids, and log. Rinse and repeat until infinitum or the universe implodes. Most likely people are growing bored of doing the same thing over and over which in turn is the reason why the gear grind feels too slow. I actually noticed during Endwalker that was when people started really grilling them on the rate of gear progression. What I think might be happening is that there isn't enough things to do to keep people in the game, which decreases the value of the gear progression because if all the stuff is going to reset anyway there isn't much point redoing the raid tier for tokens. At least not unless someone wants the glam, and that starts getting into the issues of the inventory system.

If the jobs werent issues on ultimate we wouldnt care if savage is gated.

I don't mind some basic time gating, I just wish it was easier to gear alt jobs than it is currently.

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Originally Posted by TemporalFruitsAndVeggies

Time-gating serves a very useful purpose in MMORPGs

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It is useful for the game company but not for the players.



Cheers

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

I think what OP is asking here, is more raid content that isn't timegated, still rewards something fun and worth the time, and is also challenging to tickle the 'raid brain', but is also approachable for many players. Extremes are way more popular than savages, for example. Unreal Trials as well, I always see parties up and they tend to fill quite fast, so I think difficulty like that is what a lot of people are interested in.

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They are "more popular" and people keep doing them because you need an obscene amount of clears if you're unlucky to get rewards, they're pretty RNG-gated. If you make the rewards too accessible people would just drop the content quickly.

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Originally Posted by Chiru_Kai

Extremes are way more popular than savages, for example

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Extremes have limited shelf life, precisely because they are not time gated and people eventually get done farming them.

Right now on Light DC there are just 5 DT ex parties but 19 for ultimates and 62 for savages. This proportion remains stable over entire week.

Sure its hard to estimate pf wait times, but to argue more people are doing extremes right now than savages would obviously be wrong.

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Originally Posted by Johners

If they were going to get rid of all timegates, yes the weekly lockout system is a timegate, they might as well take the MMO servers offline and just make a single player action combat game using the Unreal Engine.

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The current savages are an accurate example of why that is false. They face many problems and flaws that instead of being fun end up being anoying, and cause many players to be done faster.

First of all, if you have a good team, only the first clear takes a bit more time, after that its just a weekly reclear and you are done already. Once everyone has the gear (which in a static is managable), you are done. No need to do the content anymore unless you want the gear for other jobs (why bother though, just wait until the weekly restriction is done and then grind it). Its a terrible timegate, and causes several issues to those without a static: there is no benefit to help people, you are most efficient being as selfish as possible. Thats the exact opposite of what you want in an MMO.

Yet, they could have taken a more similar approach to regular extremes: make reclearing more rewarding, but also more demanding to grind for the best:
Lets say that instead of the 2 good pieces dropping, it now always drops 2 less but still good ones. These 2 are an upgrade, but to get the best, you need to be lucky for the 3rd item (5 ilvls higher) to drop, or buy it with totems. The weekly clear now instantly gives 5 of these. And extra clear adds 1 to this. However, for any player that hasnt completed it yet, you get another. Would you go for a team where 6 have it completed and 2 havent? Sure, you might face a few more wipes, but the totems can compensate for that. The items then can for example cost 20 each (single clears now take 4 weeks for 1 of such tiem).
But the key here is: because players are now busy grinding the gear here, the next fight can get a delayed release. Like for example 3 or 4 weeks. You now end up with at least 16 weeks of content, of which even for those who only want a single clear takes at least 9 weeks (3w cycle) or 12 weeks (4 week cycle).

For some it might be more anoying if its staggered like that, but it also keeps the grind alive longer.

For 'the' late game content, its bad since once the next patch is out, the content becomes completely obsolete. Extremes do a much better job here.

Timegating can be anoying, but it can also be a tool to increase the fun by making it less of a 'everything at once and now' situation.

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

and once you finish it you have no reason to do it again.

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There is a reason to do content again. That's having fun with the content itself. But as always for most people rewards are all that matters and not the content.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

I don't mind some basic time gating, I just wish it was easier to gear alt jobs than it is currently.

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I think one thing that would help in this regard and with timegating would be if the gear ilevel would be closer together.
If an alt job with tomegear was close enough to savage gear and alliance raid gear also then it would be better.
You would have a main job that is “perfect” and others that are close enough to be completely viable to bring into.

Problem right now imo is that gear is made obsolete far too quickly and far too much.
Alliance gear for example comes a complete patch after savage and imo should be way closer to that gear or maybe just have different stat distributions. Maybe that would also help to get more people to do savage because they don’t have to shy away from the whole gearing to even attempt it.

Just my opinion but I am no expert so maybe I overlook something.
I just think i level is far too inflationary at this point and could be closer together with different stats.

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Originally Posted by BabyYoda

I would suggest Mr. Yoshi P get spare of his time on other projects to redesign endgame loop without time gating,12$ feels like scam with current endgame loop.

there is no problem in milking content but Its time to find a proper way to design an MMO end game loop.

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Clearly op never played a mmo before. Ff14 must be their first MMo. BLADE and Soul had time gate as well.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

I don't mind some basic time gating, I just wish it was easier to gear alt jobs than it is currently.

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We should really be able to get a piece from another role when we open a coffer or buy with tomestones.
You buy Striking Gloves, you can choose between another type of Gloves. That would help regardless if it's those gloves are BiS or not.

I really don't know what everyone's obsession is with getting every job they play to BiS as quick as humanly possible.
I also don't get when people think it's a flaw with the game that it takes a long time to do.
To put it simply, the fact that you don't know whether you'll get that one piece of gear this week makes the gearing more satisfying. This is a tried and tested method for MMOs that's been around since the genre's inception.
Furthermore, Best in Slot is only a requirement for new Ultimates, which release months after the savage patch, and remain relevant forever. As people have mentioned, there are Ultimate prog and clear groups up on PF round the clock for all five fights. I promise you, you won't have any issue getting a FRU group on your fourth class if you get to it an extra month or two down the line.
If you're only going to be doing Savage, then you just need to craft or buy your 710 gear, or do normal raids for tokens if you don't mind the waiting, and you're set. We all did the tier week 1 with that ilvl. If you can't manage with 710, then 730 won't help you much.

Essentially, Best in Slot is an achievement. And we as gamers tend to look down upon those who ask for achievements to be made easier for any reason.

"I need BiS for parsing" says the strawman. To whom I reply: That's not officially supported, and unless you're using a stopwatch for how fast the boss dies, or reading through a long battle log with a calculator, you need to break ToS to do it. Wouldn't recommend.
"Why shouldn't I be able to clear an Ultimate week 1 with seven different jobs" says the strawman. I respond with a question of my own. Why should the loot system be upended entirely for the relatively microscopic percentage of the playerbase who clear Ultimates in multiple jobs when they're current content? It's nearly impossible to tell how many people try each fight, but best data I've been able to find says that less than 1% of players cleared TOP. Not an insignificant number of players by any stretch, but certainly paling in comparison to the average PF savage raider.
And again, you have months of time to gear up your favorites. Maybe not all of them, but that's when you have to pick and choose. That's not a bad thing to specialize a bit. We're all Warriors of Light, but everyone's a bit different. If we're talking about this for the benefit on the player who only bothers to log in right when the Ultimate Patch drops, then I'd first question their foresight and how much they truly know about Ultimates. Next I'd question how many people this truly accounts for, and again, Is it worth upending the whole loot system for?

Honestly I disagree, tbh we need more time gating things that are always in the game to be fully honest, we are playing it should be a grind like hell -_-

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Originally Posted by GartredZW

I really don't know what everyone's obsession is with getting every job they play to BiS as quick as humanly possible.

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I don't think a lot of people are actually asking for this. I want to gear ONE other job, maybe two, max, so I can help out with other friend's statics if they need a fill and so I can be more role flexible. I don't need full BiS, but let's be real--weeks in, no one wants to raid with someone with min IL crafted gear if they don't have to. I could be doing a perfect rotation and still be doing way less damage than someone with BiS just cruising because they make item level in this game SO overpowered. Like I said, I don't mind some time gating. It's an MMO, I get it. It's boring and unfulfilling to just be given everything right away. I don't want that. But for an alt unfriendly game that boasts the ability to play all 20+ jobs on a single character, they sure make getting good gear for more than a single job more annoying than it needs to be.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

I don't think a lot of people are actually asking for this. I want to gear ONE other job, maybe two, max, so I can help out with other friend's statics if they need a fill and so I can be more role flexible. I don't need full BiS, but let's be real--weeks in, no one wants to raid with someone with min IL crafted gear if they don't have to. I could be doing a perfect rotation and still be doing way less damage than someone with BiS just cruising because they make item level in this game SO overpowered. Like I said, I don't mind some time gating. It's an MMO, I get it. It's boring and unfulfilling to just be given everything right away. I don't want that.

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These reasons don't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

- Unlike WoW where gears is part of the progression and requirement, FF14 gear is nothing but a bonus.
- If your "friends" is asking for your "help", why they're being picky about your gears? Unless by helping here you mean they're just asking for carried.

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But for an alt unfriendly game that boasts the ability to play all 20+ jobs on a single character, they sure make getting good gear for more than a single job more annoying than it needs to be.

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Maybe because I had played a lot of MMO, I've realize for myself very early ... and by early I mean 2.0 early that this is more or less is just a marketing gimmick. The only one single advantage it has is you can be fully self-sufficient in term of crafting and gathering. But that's it. there is literally nothing beneficial to level every job on 1 char. For me this is more of sneaky way to condition players into wasting time on leveling the jobs they would never otherwise do, and as such inflate playing time. Me, I play 4 "real" alt. 2 months in and I have 4 job bis out, problem solves. And what does that cost me? Probably a few extra hour per alt at every 3 years to get them through the MSQ the first time, that's it. The benefit of having true alt is immense, and it actually save a massive about of time in the long run. The time people wasted in lvling 20 job on one char instead of lvling just 2-3 job on 2-3 seperated character is so comically inefficient for the perceive benefit.


Look, the game has been out for 10 years, at this point if people still haven't seen pass the Marketing gimmick of "lvling all your job on one char" as one of the worst way to play the game ... I think they are a bit too gullible.

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Originally Posted by CuteBucket

But for an alt unfriendly game that boasts the ability to play all 20+ jobs on a single character, they sure make getting good gear for more than a single job more annoying than it needs to be.

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Yeah, I can agree there. I wish there was a sort of system to get any class raid ready without needing to wait.
Maybe if you could just use materials you find throughout the world to just create the gear yourself. It wouldn't be on par with the stuff you get from savage, but at least make it a little above normal raid gear. or heck, maybe we could even give gil to other players to make that gear for us.
Too bad that doesn't exist, or it would be way harder to get into the current savage tier on all 21 of my main jobs that I all play and enjoy equally.

seriously though, I still see ilvl 710 parties to this day. I don't even care about what the ilvl is as long as it's set to Weekly Reward Unclaimed. The only thing that makes ilvl matter is giving your group some wiggle room with how many deaths/damage downs you can get away with, or how much of the fight you can skip. At the end of the day, what matters is your mastery of the fight. Relying on raw strength is how you get wipes to Mouser.

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Originally Posted by Raven2014

The time people wasted in lvling 20 job on one char instead of lvling just 2-3 job on 2-3 seperated character is so comically inefficient for the perceive benefit.


Look, the game has been out for 10 years, at this point if people still haven't seen pass the Marketing gimmick of "lvling all your job on one char" as one of the worst way to play the game ... I think they are a bit too gullible.

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Yeah, you're probably right about that. I think I saw it as a plus when I first joined because I'm a very indecisive person, so a game that makes me pick a class right at the start and makes me stick with it or start a whole new character makes me nervous, because I want to try everything to see what I like first. Maybe I'm weird in that I do enjoy leveling all the jobs, but I do so very slowly over months and months. My main has his two main jobs at level 100, and I'm slowly leveling the others when I feel like it. My alt (the one with her picture up right now, I swap between them sometimes) I'm just slowly leveling everything on because my weird autistic brain likes all the numbers being similar.

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- Unlike WoW where gears is part of the progression and requirement, FF14 gear is nothing but a bonus.
- If your "friends" is asking for your "help", why they're being picky about your gears? Unless by helping here you mean they're just asking for carried.

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My friends don't require me to have BiS by any means. This is probably more a "me" think as I want to feel like I'm contributing enough damage to keep up with them if they asked me to fill a DPS slot, for example. I'm not trying to get big impressive number (don't care tbh), but I want to make sure my theoretical "bad gear" isn't making me a boat anchor either. Perhaps that's just my own worries getting the better of me though.